VBA to contest all 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra in 2024 polls: Prakash Ambedkar

Last year, the VBA entered into an alliance with the Shiv Sena (UBT) led by Uddhav Thackeray. While this tie-up is still intact, the lack of response from the Congress regarding a pre-poll alliance appears to have upset Ambedkar.

“The VBA was keen on putting up a united Opposition front. We had initiated the process by conveying our stand. A non-BJP front was in our mind,” he said, adding, “The Congress-NCP-Sena (UBT) has not taken any formal decision on alliance and seat sharing. When there is uncertainty among the three partners within the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), how are we going to put up a united Opposition front?”

Ambedkar went on, “I have learnt that a section within the Congress is not keen on a pre-poll alliance with the Shiv Sena (UBT). They argue that a pre-poll pact with Thackeray’s party will fetch them ten per cent votes, but the Congress will lose 25 per cent of its traditional votes. So, there are serious issues within the Congress about the alliance with Sena (UBT).”

He said the VBA is not getting into the MVA’s issues. “We have an alliance with the Shiv Sena (UBT). But in the absence of any clarity, we cannot be just hanging and doing nothing. Time is running out. There are no meetings. Whether it is the Congress, NCP or Shiv Sena (UBT), each are caught up in their own organisational issues. In such a situation where there is no communication or progress, we have decided to chart our own political roadmap. We have decided to contest all 48 seats alone in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections,” Ambedkar explained.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the VBA contested in 47 seats and polled 6.92 per cent votes. In the state Assembly elections, it fought in 236 of the total 288 Assembly constituencies and bagged a 4.58 per cent vote share. Although it did not win a single seat in the Lok Sabha or Assembly polls, it emerged as a spoiler, shifting the votes in at least eight Lok Sabha seats and leading to the defeat of the Congress-NCP as the VBA raked in 50,000 to 1.5 lakh votes in each seat.

Similarly, in the Assembly elections, the presence of VBA candidates scuttled the electoral prospects in 32 seats. The Congress-NCP leaders had then alleged that the VBA was the BJP’s B-team, a charge that Ambedkar strongly refuted.

“We are an independent political party. We have our own objective and manifesto. Our party composition is such that it is all inclusive. Its core agenda is to consolidate all oppressed and suppressed segments across caste, community and religion. All those socially, economically and educationally neglected and deprived constitute our party. We have a definite purpose and plans. And we work accordingly,” he said.

The grandson of B R Ambedkar believes that in the current circumstances, where politics is highly polarised on the lines of caste and religion, the poor and oppressed segments become more vulnerable. Whether it is the poor Marathas or poor Dalits, tribals or Muslims, they are at the receiving end. They are the worst affected. The VBA is an organisation for these constituents who are left out by the mainstream political parties.

“We are secular. We don’t endorse the BJP/RSS politics or ideologies. So, where is the question of any covert or overt understanding with the BJP? The VBA will contest on its own merit and manifesto. We are not working to help or defeat any party. We are focused on consolidating our own party. We are pursuing our own politics and socio-economic agenda, keeping our “vanchit (deprived)” segments in mind,” he argued.